


Sons Of Mine I Hear You Thrilling (To The Trumpet Call Of War)

by Cunien



Series: 1920s ex-soldiers-turned-gardeners Musketeers AU [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: AU, Battle, Bloodshed, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Death in last chapter!, Near Death Experiences, PTSD, WW1, WW1-AU, War, World War One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunien/pseuds/Cunien
Summary: "He doesn't realise he's crying until his shaky sobs dislodge some more of the earth, and mud pools fresh around his legs. He can see a hand sticking out of it - skin clean and smooth like that of a boy. God, he doesn't want to be here with all these dead men. Aramis believes in God and angels, but does he believe in ghosts? Does he believe that these men might be angry with him, because he's alive and they are not? Does he believe they'll come for him?There's something moving out there. If it's the Germans pushing forwards they'll likely throw a grenade down to clear the crater without even stopping to see him. If it's Marsac he might get shot by either side, stumbling around in the darkness. If it's the dead, come for Aramis…There's nothing he can do but wait. All his prayers are gone. Aramis closes his eyes, and thinks of snow."*It's 1916, and Aramis, Athos, Porthos and d'Artagnan are about to meet on the battlefields of France. (This is a prequel to the idea that bit me, Mausii, akathecentimetre and agarthanguide in the butt many moons ago: what if the Musketeers were battle-scarred gardeners in a 1920s mansion owned by Treville and his niece Ninon? Stick with me, it works...)*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to the idea that bit me, Mausii, commonplacecaz and agarthanguide in the butt many moons ago: what if the Musketeers were battle-scarred gardeners in a 1920s mansion owned by Treville and his niece Ninon? I don't even remember where the idea came from except it involved wooly jumpers, traumatised boys, tea in battered enamel mugs, prized rose cuttings, dancing, and sweet kisses on foggy mornings on the south coast of England.
> 
> But for battle-traumatised Musketeers there must first be a battle. Which is how this came about.
> 
> Please be aware that there is a MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH at the end of Chapter 2 of Part 1.

>  

Marsac jitters his legs, knocking Aramis’ where they sit hunched together in the trench.

“Fucking hell,” Marsac spits “Fucking hell. When will he just fucking _die_?”No one replies, no one even looks up.

“It’s Glyn...isn’t it? I think it’s Glyn,” says someone down the line. The aborted attempt at pushing towards the German line had ended in a shambolic retreat back to the trench that they’d started from - minus fifty odd men.

One of them is caught on the wire. The whimpering is enough to set Aramis’ nerves jangling. Marsac’s hands pluck at a tiny clump of ragged grass that has doggedly remained alive through the winter, and the war. Fingers working feverishly, he shreds the pathetic little stalks one at a time.

There’s a shuffling as someone wiggles upwards to peer cautiously over the top. It’s Jimmy, inching higher, bit by bit until the top of his helmet is just clear of the dirt. Crammed as they are they all end up being pushed and shoved along the line with his movements. After a quick glance, he slumps back down with a squelch of mud. “Yep. Glyn.”

“Should we try to get him?” someone asks. Aramis lights a cigarette and peers through the smoke at the speaker. Under the grime and the filth Aramis finds it difficult to tell the age of the men around him anymore, but his hands are             pale where they twist at the grip of his rifle, slim fingers pink around the gloss of short fingernails, like a baby's.

Jimmy shakes his head firmly. “He’s done for.”

“You’re sure?” Aramis asks.

“No aid station’ll do for him now. He’s got more on the outsides than the in.” Another moan floats across the distance, sounds like the bleating of some animal. It’s pitiful and small, that sound, but it’s enough that Aramis knows no man within hearing of it will sleep tonight, and with orders back and forth from their current commander stationed more than a mile from the line there’s every likelihood they’ll be here till morning waiting.

“You’re sure, Jimmy?” Aramis asks, one more time. The other man nods and lets his head fall back onto the dirt wall with a thud of his helmet.

“Cuddia dy wyneb oddi wrth fy mhechodau, a dilea fy holl anwireddau,” Aramis says, taking a last drag on his cigarette before putting it straight into the gap between Marsac’s parted lips. _Hide your face from my sins, and wipe away all my evils._ Not all the boys in the the 1st Cardiganshire Royal Welsh Fusiliers speak Welsh, but a few familiar enough with capel every Sunday join in with the psalm. The voices whisper up around him; Aramis can feel them pressing into his ears, his mouth, his eyes.

“Crea galon lân ynof, O Dduw, ac adnewydda yspryd uniawn o’m mewn,” he says, shifting his rifle into his hands, and the voices say the words with him. _Create a pure heart within me, O God, and put a new and loyal spirit in me._

“Na fwrw fi ymaith oddi ger dy fron...” Aramis crawls slowly to the top of the trench, resting his rifle on the ground and keeping his head low as he sights down the barrel. _Do not banish me from your presence._

He looks, but doesn’t see. It’s something Aramis has learned to do this past two years of war. He knows he’s a good shot - he could have been a sniper, but the life is a solitary one and Aramis knows he would go mad within a day - but there’s a way of aiming without really looking at the person. He doesn’t see Glyn, who grew up two doors down from Aramis, joined the Pals Battalion with him, and slogged the mud with him. Glyn who won the school Eisteddfod chair for a poem when they were nine years old, Glyn who has two little girls back home, Glyn who’s caught on the wire, half-standing, his guts around his knees.

“...ac na chymer dy Yspryd sanctaidd oddi wrthyf,” Aramis says, keeps his voice even but doesn’t find it particularly difficult. “Amen,” he breathes, the moment he pulls the trigger.

Aramis doesn’t check to see if he made the shot - he knows he did. He slithers back down to the trench and takes the cigarette back from Marsac with hands that don't shake, not one bit. The men have ended the psalm with him, abruptly and half-way done, but the words whisper through him still, like gas on the horizon, white and impenetrable and going nowhere. Ac na chymer dy Yspryd sanctaidd oddi wrthyf. _And do not take your holy spirit away from me._

He sees that Marsac has plucked the little clump of grass away to nothing, pulled up even the roots from the loose mud and tossed them down into the filth of the trench. Aramis feels the frown work its way across his face, and something like a sigh chills its way through him, too deep down to show.

 

*

 

The weather grows colder through March and into April - spring is as distant as home, and everything is wet and sodden and stinking. At first they try to keep their feet dry, but the trenches have half a metre of standing water at their bottoms, swimming with muck and rats. They’re told to dry their socks around their necks but soon give up - the artillery comes in without warning, and no man wants to die with his boots off.

Rumours fly along the front, but no one seems to know who’s actually _winning._ “We’re all the bloody losers in this,” Marsac says, and Aramis can’t find it in himself to disagree. Each time they go over the top or are involved in any kind of skirmish their number grows a little smaller. There’s talk of their battalion being bolstered by another, perhaps the 12th Reserves, but nothing happens, and their numbers keep dwindling.

All Aramis knows is that if he has to see any more of his fellow soldiers die he’d rather they weren’t the boys he signed up or went to school with. _Pals battalions_. Aramis would like to personally shoot the man who came up with that fucked up idea. He conveniently forgets that’s why he signed up in the first place - because Marsac was, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Aramis would let him go by himself, or fight alongside strangers.

He doesn’t know if they’re moving forward or backwards either, if their line is pushing further into France or back the way it came. No direction seems to make sense anymore, and everything looks the same: they pass through field after field of mud and scraps of uniform that could once have been men. The only difference comes when his regiment march through a forest of bone-shattered trees standing like ghosts in the light of dusk. They seem reproachful, somehow. Aramis hurries through, eyes cast downwards, and mutters a prayer with the feeling of watchful eyes prickling the back of his neck until the dead trees are well out of sight.

The rain keeps coming. Sometimes the water in the bottom of the trench is filmed over with a thin layer of slushed ice in the mornings.

The day before Good Friday orders come that they’ll be attacking tomorrow. Aramis goes to tell Marsac, and finds him huddled in a hollow he’s dug into the side of the trench, barely wide enough to jam his shoulder-width into. He looks smaller, somehow.

“Cosy?” Aramis asks.

“As a feather bed,” Marsac replies, words mumbled themselves through chattering teeth. “You should try it.” He crooks his finger towards an empty hole in the opposite wall, but Aramis shakes his head. “Not for me.”

Funk-holes, they call them. It makes Aramis’ stomach drop, the way the earth fits around the men huddled in its grasp - it’s too much like a grave a man’s dug for himself, and he can’t get the thought out of his head. There’s nothing on earth - not even the swarming hellfire of artillery - that will get him in one of them.

Instead he huddles at the opening, half sitting on Marsac’s feet where his knees are drawn up out of the water.

“We’re going over the top again, tomorrow,” Aramis says.

“Of course we are,” Marsac replies.

They light a cigarette in the overhang of earth, away from the rain, and pass it back and forth in silence.“I heard Ed lit a cigarette - that’s how he did it,” Marsac says, after a while.

“Hmm?”

“He lit a cigarette, held it in his hand just like this.” Marsac’s voice is curiously blank. “Stuck it over the top one night and waited for the Jerries to shoot.”

He pulls his legs in a little tighter, rolling the cigarette between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. “Perfect wound, right through the palm. Nice and clean. Ticket home.”

“Ticket to the firing squad,” Aramis corrects, and when Marsac looks at him in question he flicks the brim of his helmet back a little despite the rain, so he can catch Marsac’s eye and hold it. “They did him for self-mutilation. Had him shot yesterday morning.”

“Oh,” Marsac says, handing back the cigarette.

Aramis thinks for a while, about the best way to say it, because he wants to take the other man by the lapels and shake him and slap him until he promises on his life he won’t ever even _think_ about doing something like that -  but it’s never been like that between them, there’s always been so much left unsaid, and why change it now, just because they’re on the front line of the war to end all fucking wars?

“It was a stupid thing to do,” he says, instead. “A stupid thing, Marsac.”

“Stupid, clever, good, bad,” Marsac shrugs, or does so as much as the cramped space will allow. His eyes are very blue against the monotone of mud and khaki and brackish water. “Up, down. What’s it matter?”

He passes the cigarette, and Aramis inhales the smoke sharply, feels it expand tight and pressing inside his lungs. He drums his fingers against Marsac’s boot, a little morse code of tapping, hopes he can somehow transmit all he wants to say through touch alone.

Out here the wire, long and snaking, is the only way to communicate with anyone not on the front. Aramis feels like the wire between Marsac and himself has been cut somewhere along the way, when they weren’t looking, and now he’s not sure how to fix it.

“Stay close tomorrow,” Aramis says, instead. “Like always. You and me.”

Marsac nods. “You and me.”

 

*

 

The silence, when it comes, would have been enough to knock Aramis off his feet. As it is the bucking ground and the blast of air sends him sprawling to curl in the mud like a crooked question mark, his rifle far beyond reach, even if he had the presence of mind to stretch out for it.

The explosions have an awful sort of texture - threads of sounds woven so densely Aramis can barely pick them apart, but he thinks he hears a screaming in the barrage of noise, something like a woman's laugh, a singing choir, a whisper there underlying it all, like the men who prayed with him as he shot Glyn - because it’s all the noise in the world in one breath, all the sounds there ever were. And then - nothing.

He's not sure if he loses consciousness for a while, but the curious stillness after the barrage is oddly jarring. Aramis can feel the mud yielding and awful beneath his cheek, sickeningly warm with the slick release of blood from his temple.

The piece of shrapnel that sliced his head lies nearby, a crumpled curl of smoking metal. It came up and under the brim of his helmet, the force enough to break the leather chin strap and send the whole thing flying. He has no rifle, no helmet, no gas mask. The three things a soldier should never be without, and here he is.

There's blood everywhere. He's lying in it. God, not all of it is his.

Aramis struggles, clawing at the mud and the mud clawing right back. As the smoke begins to clear he can see the bodies from where he lies, a severed arm here, something fat and coiled and gleaming near his face. The silence feels like the kind that heralds a gas attack, heavy and loaded, and the panic stirs in his belly like something living.

He has to get up, has to find his gun and helmet and gas mask and get _away_. He would stand up right now and risk being shot to pieces by the guns, even that would be better than this, but the mud pulls him down, and he's so tired.

He can't even lift his head when he starts to vomit, just lies in it, with all the rest of the filth.

Without the booming of the shells or the popping of gunfire, Aramis begins to feel like the last man alive on the planet. The British line can't be more than 100 metres away, they'd hardly began to run before the artillery came in, but everything is quiet. All the men around him are utterly dead, not a whimper or a groan to be heard.

Aramis lies, and shakes, feels the strange dislocation of concussion and blood loss and shock murmuring through him, sleep-heavy and sick.

With a shifting, one of the mounds of bloody uniform off to his right begins to move, pulling itself upwards, and Aramis gasps out a stuttered cry.

Marsac is covered in blood and flecks of bone and gore. He sits up, oblivious to everything, and blinks - his eyes always were just this side of wild, but there's something jagged and desperate in them now.

He sits, and blinks, looks at his bloodied hands.

"Marsac," Aramis whispers. "You're alive. Thank God. You're alive." His words trail off into something like a quiet hiccup, wavering between a laugh and a sob. The relief is warm water pouring through him, which only serves to make him feel more lightheaded.

Marsac shows no sign of having heard Aramis. He looks at his hands, at the bloodied mess that remains of their unit lying around them, out at the battlefield, back to his hands.

"Marsac," Aramis rasps. "Help me. I can't get up....my helmet...I...help me."

It’s so quiet. It’s so quiet but the noise was worse, and he knows it could start again at any moment.

"Marsac. Please.”

The other man looks at him then, a curious quirk to his head.

"Marsac it's me. I've been hit."

Marsac gets unsteadily to his feet, and Aramis' heart lurches painfully into his throat. "No! They’ll see you! They'll start again!"

Marsac blinks but makes no move to lower himself or find cover, and picks his way over to Aramis, slipping a little in the filth. He ignores Aramis' protests, hooks his hands beneath his arms and hefts until the other man is propped against him.

The world spins and lurches now he’s more upright, and it’s all he can do to screw his eyes shut and push down at the muscles convulsing in his stomach. When he opens his eyes once more Marsac and he are slumped in a crater - a shelter from the guns, perhaps, but if the artillery comes again - or gas - it would be little protection.

Aramis concentrates on breathing, tying himself to each exhale and inhale. After a little while in silence he feels Marsac shifting next to him, removing a length of the puttees bandaged around his leg and tying it roughly around the wound at Aramis’s temple.

“Is it bad?” Aramis asks, still not able to bring his voice anything above a whisper.

Marsac doesn’t answer, just ties off the knot and freezes, transfixed again by the sight of his hands.

“I’ve got blood on me,” he says, after a while. There’s something un-tied in his voice, something loose and wandering, and Aramis thinks of the telephone wire again, disconnected.

“Are you hurt?”

Marsac blinks. “None of it’s mine.”

He seems to see Aramis then, focusing on him as something snaps behind his eyes, and Aramis realises with a slow trickle of panic down his spine that this break has been a long time coming, a spidery bloom of splinter-thin cracks inside that couldn’t hold the weight anymore.

“Fuck,” Marsac mumbles, voice high and tight. He plucks at the sleeves of his jacket like a child. “Fuck, I’m covered in...get it off...get it _off…”_

“Marsac,” Aramis says, “Please sit down, please be quiet.” He can’t do this now. His head is pounding and muffled, and the need to vomit again is clawing up from his gullet, red-hot and dreadful.

But it’s too late - he knows that with a bone-deep certainty. Marsac tugs at his uniform till the buttons strain and slip, and he throws the jacket to the ground with an animal noise of horror.

“I have to go,” he says, and Aramis feels the words ricochet around his empty skull, “I have to go..go…”

 _Please_ , he wants to say - he wants to get down on his knees and beg - _please don’t leave me._

Instead Aramis closes his eyes so that he doesn’t have to see Marsac leave, counts to a hundred and gets lost somewhere along the way, opens them again to the feathery brush of falling snow against his cheek. The quiet settles around him.

The cold is a slow creeping thing, buzzing through his limbs, and beneath his uniform his skin prickles uncomfortably with drying sweat. Aramis lies, and draws all of his strength to himself with his wandering mind until he can attempt to move up the steep sides of the crater. He gets half way up before it gives way with a slop of wet earth, and he’s pushed back down by the weight of mud and bodies and filth to lie gasping at the bottom once more.

 

*

 

Athos won’t take the letter out, because the snow is coming down thickly now and the faded ink might smudge. He only brushes his fingers against its worn soft edges, tucked carefully in his pocket. It’s the letter he would have had sent to his wife should he die - he supposes he ought to get rid of the thing, since its declarations of forever and love and devotion are enough to make a bright swell of nausea rise in his throat. He remembers writing it, the night after he first saw action, but that was two years ago and the naivety is shocking to him now.

But the thought of being without the letter makes him feel as though the ground has been pulled out from beneath him. Athos knows he is a fool, but there seems little point in hating himself for a thing he's been aware of for two years now. Especially in this place. So the letter remains, in the pocket above his heart, above the inked lines of a tattoo that serves as another reminder of a life long dead. There’s a strange sort of _rightness_ in the utter contradiction: the letter to a woman who betrayed and murdered, lying above the tattooed likeness of a saint remembered for her piety and goodness.

The artillery barrage stopped less than half an hour ago, but Athos can still feel it echoing through him, and it sets his teeth on edge. He'd watched an entire battalion - one he'd fought alongside a handful of times- reduced to nothing in front of his eyes, after all. He'd seen two men left standing, one dragging the other, who appeared to be wounded, out of sight before stumbling off into the fog of falling snow. He was likely dead now. The both of them were.

The orders didn't make sense, that was the strangest part: those men had been sent to their deaths for nothing, no strategic or military advantage that Athos can see. He knows though that if he begins to pick at this thread his whole life out here will come unraveling, because the point of anything becomes indistinct when it's covered in mud and blood and shit.

But what if he's alive, that man? What if he's alone out there?

Athos has always tried not to break the rules, if he can help it - only bend them until they shift from Totally Fucking Ridiculous into something a little less suicidal for his men. He has a lot of things on his conscience, God knows, but the pointless deaths of the company he is supposed to command won't be among them if he can help it. Still, this is disobeying a direct order. Athos realises he could potentially face a firing squad for this, but finds it doesn't make much difference to him, in the end.

“You’re really going to do this, then?” Porthos asks from below, because he’s been watching him and he knows, knows everything. Athos lowers himself down the last few steps of the ladder, back down into the trench, and looks at the other man steadily. “What would you do, if you were the captain and I were the corporal?”

Porthos weighs it up, but only for a second. “I’d do it.”

“Me too. But since I’m only a private no one seems to give a shit,” d’Artagnan adds. Porthos claps the boy on the back and squares his own shoulders. “S’ppose the Major doesn’t know about this, yeah?”

Athos shakes his head, a tight snap. “He refused my request. You don’t have to go with me. It’s not an order.”

“Better make it one,” d’Artagnan says, “So we don’t get court-martialed along with you.”

“Alright,” Athos says, with a grim smile, “You two are coming over the top with me as soon as it’s dark to see if that man is still alive and bring him back if he is. Official enough for you? I’ll put it in writing, just in case.”

Porthos grins. “Let’s see if we can rustle up some warm grub then eh, if it’s to be our last meal.”

As a captain, Athos has use of one of the little command dugouts towards the rear of the trench system. It’s not much, but the other captains rarely use this one (it’s too small) and it’s blessedly free of anyone of rank to reprimand him for spending time in the company of a private and a corporal, or to make comments about how one sounds French and the other is distinctly dark of skin.

Officially Porthos shouldn’t even be in the company - men like him lay the wires, load the ammunition and _dig_ the trenches, but they don’t fight in them, not alongside Good British White Soldiers. But it’s 1916 and every man that can hold a rifle is needed, especially one this good at soldiering. Porthos laughs and says they’re so covered in shit and mud everyone looks the same now anyway, but Athos knows each casual jibe or remark is trickling down inside Porthos somewhere, drip-by-drip, and one day it will rage like an ocean and will have to go _somewhere_.

Officially d’Artagnan should not be here either - they’d come across him fresh from the fighting at Loos, and before they knew it he’d already saved their lives. He should go back to what’s left of his unit - in the _French_ army - but refuses, and since desertion is punishable by death no matter which army you’re in they took him on, gave him a British uniform and the dogtags of a young private killed somewhere near Ypres. They don’t ask him how old he is, though it cramps at Athos’ heart sometimes when he looks at d’Artagnan and sees how competent a killer the war has made him. His english is only slightly accented, and he’s too good a soldier for any of the other men to report him, so shoving him out of sight at roll-call or the few scant times the Major decides to grace them with their presence has become a point of company pride.

It’s not wise to have attachments out here, Athos knows. But he finds himself surprised at the fact that this is easier said than done. Perhaps he’s not entirely rotted away inside, after all.

Porthos has a knack of finding things - food, ammunition, medical supplies, little luxuries - which is another thing that Athos doesn’t ask about. Still, he’s not complaining when the man turns up at the dugout with a pail of stew, steaming lightly.

Porthos deposits the pail on the table and withdraws a loaf of passable bread from his jacket, brushes the snow from his shoulders and shivers a little. “Bloody freezing out there, but here’s something to warm us up.”

“Not horse, I hope?” Athos enquires, poking at the lumps of meat swimming in the stew.

“You English. Nothing wrong with horse,” d’Artagnan insists, already tucking into a bowl of the stuff.

“Not horse. It’s the kind that goes _baah_ ,” Porthos grins, “That’s a sheep, right?”

“Once upon a time,” d’Artagnan agrees, tearing the bread into thirds and passing it around.

They eat in companionable silence until the darkness falls, which can’t be more than half an hour later. It’s a strange sort of dusk with the snow lying here and there, melting to slush where it hits the water but settling on hollows and tin helmets. Athos watches it hit the puddles of mud and filthy water with a curl of his lip. It seems wrong for it to snow here, for something so clean and white to brush their foreheads like a benediction whilst elsewhere it’s tainted and swallowed up by the hell they’ve wrought.

“They’ll start shelling again, if they see us,” Athos says as they make their way to the forward listening post. They pass a few men, who nod at them in silence, but this trench system is largely empty since the battalion that once manned it is lying cut to pieces in no-man’s-land now.

“I need to be sure you know that,” Athos continues.

“We know that,” d’Artagnan says. “If that man is alive…” He takes a steadying breath. “There’s nothing worse than being alone out there. I remember when you found me…” The boy trails off, unwilling to elaborate. There’s no need - they all know what it’s like to be separated, how the world narrows down to only you, a tiny stationary speck in a whirling mass of uncaring darkness, and the hugeness of everything is suffocating. No one wants to be alone out here. Out here the solitude is enough to kill a man.

The forward listening post juts from the relative safety of the huddled mass of trenches, and as soon as they walk through its earthen walls they all fall silent: they’re closer to the German lines here, and sound carries strangely in no-man’s-land. Sometimes you can hear the click of a lighter in the enemy trench but not the man speaking right next to you.

There’s no ladder up the walls here, because it’s not a place where the men would ever go up top. Porthos carries an old metal trunk with him from the dugout, and when the time comes he’ll step atop it to boost the others over.

Athos places one palm against the slick mud wall, brushes the knuckles of the other lightly against his chest. Under his jacket, past the letter in his pocket, his shirt and undershirt, he can feel the tattoo twitch - or perhaps that’s just the heart that lies beneath it, reminding him he's still alive. He won’t ask for help from the saint branded there in pinpricks of ink, with her garland of roses and sad eyes turned upwards. He never asked her for anything, and he’s never been the praying type in any case, but the fact is that he’s walked through two years of hell with barely a scratch. His men he’s seen brought down in so many ways it’s hard to count, but their captain always remained unscathed, and he knows someday soon he’ll be due.

He doesn’t know what he’d ask for, if he could bring himself to believe, and pray: the continued miracle of luck, or a wound the likes of which he suspects he might deserve? The thought doesn’t bother him overly, and he hopes only that, should he be wounded or die, he’ll do it after he’s done his duty. And tonight that duty is to bring back a man, alive. That would be a fitting exchange, he supposes.

It’s not that he has a wish for death, only that he’s not sure he would fight it particularly hard should it come for him.

"No time like the present, I suppose," Porthos says, shaking Athos back out from the depths of his own thoughts. "Ready?"

The big man claps Athos on the shoulder and pulls him roughly into a hug, d'Artagnan on the other side. The three of them take a moment to arrange their arms comfortably, and bow their heads to meet in the middle. They all draw something from the closeness, but it feels somehow lopsided, with three of them, and the snow melts uncomfortably on the nape of Athos exposed neck.

Porthos and d'Artagnan don their helmets, and Athos his cap - he doesn't care what Porthos says, he can't bring himself to wear a tin helmet, hates its weight on his head and how oppressive it is. D'Artagnan palms the grip of his rifle, and Athos has the solidity of his pistol in the holster at his waist, but Porthos has elected to go out with no weapon this time. If they're lucky they shouldn't need one, in any case, and he's always preferred to have his hands free.

Athos goes first, because he would never ask the others to. He steps up onto the metal trunk where Porthos already stands and puts his muddy boot into the cradle of the other man's hands, before being boosted high enough to get a knee over onto solid ground and slither forwards on his belly. D'Artagnan follows close behind, but it takes a while for them to pull Porthos up, slick and wet as the ground is.

Once they're all above the trench, the snow and mud seeping uncomfortable through their uniforms, they get slowly to their feet, staying low and moving forward as quickly as possible across the uneven battleground, out towards the distant shell crater.

 

*

 

When Aramis looks down he can see the snow beginning to settle on his uniform, and spends what feels like hours watching the way the flakes melt on his outstretched palm. Before they disappear they look like the little snowdrop flowers that grew on the banks of the river Wyre when he was a boy, small and fleeting. They didn’t mind the cold. They came in that blurring between spring and winter, just when he had begun to think the cold would last forever. They were always a herald of longer days and the warmth of spring to come, but these snowflake flowers bloom and fade so fast in Aramis’ hand, and no matter how hard he wills it he can’t make them stay.

He doesn't feel so cold anymore, and notices with some detachment that the shivering has stopped, which he knows is a bad sign. Aramis had spent some time idly dreaming of studying medicine before the war, knowing all the while that he had neither the money nor the patience for any such thing. But books were easy enough to come by, and before he shipped out to France he had some time to memorise the sort of things he thought might be useful: how to treat wounds, stitch them if necessary, things like hypothermia and shock - the former he suspects he may have soon and the latter he's sure he's well into already.

Aramis' mind feels vast and empty - when he closes his eyes all he can see is miles and miles of snowy nothingness, but it's oddly comforting. The snow covered ground is smooth, there's nothing underneath its white blankness, no bodies or jumbles of wire and filth. He wants to pray, but nothing comes to mind. He's always been good at remembering things - poems and prayers and medical textbooks - but now there's nothing but that snowy expanse.

Back home the snow used to come down sudden and quiet - the mountain was high enough to see for miles, and you could watch the snow nearing like a pale impenetrable curtain, nothing between you and the whiteness till it enveloped around you and cut the whole world out.

He thinks about the fighting in Mons, back at the beginning of the war. He was sure he'd seen the angels there, the angels that had come down to help them win that miracle of a day against an enemy who outnumbered them countless times over. Aramis knows he's always been a curious mix of romantic and realist: it may just have been the way the sun broke through the clouds that gave a group of desperate and exhausted men the comfort of a shared vision, but he _believes_ in God, and in His angels, so why shouldn't they have come to them that day?

Will the angels come for him now? It's too dark to see, perhaps they won't be able to find him out here in this vast expanse, not smooth and blanketed in virgin snow but lumpen and pitted with blood and foulness. Why would they dirty themselves, to set foot here? Perhaps they've turned their faces away.

A man then. Perhaps Aramis can put his faith in a man. If he could pull himself up to the top of the crater someone might see him, like Aramis saw Glyn caught on the wire. Someone with a keen eye and a steady hand, someone to say a prayer for him when they pull the trigger, a bullet sure and true and quick.

God, fuck, make it quick.

He doesn't realise he's crying until his shaky sobs dislodge some more of the earth, and mud pools fresh around his legs. He can see a hand sticking out of it - skin clean and smooth like that of a boy. God, he doesn't want to be here with all these dead men. Aramis believes in God and angels, but does he believe in ghosts? Does he believe that these men might be angry with him, because he's alive and they are not? Does he believe they'll come for him?

There's something moving out there. If it's the Germans pushing forwards they'll likely throw a grenade down to clear the crater without even stopping to see him. If it's Marsac he might get shot by either side, stumbling around in the darkness. If it's the dead, come for Aramis…

There's nothing he can do but wait. All his prayers are gone. Aramis closes his eyes, and thinks of snow.

 

*

 

They spread out a little to make a smaller target.  Athos can hear his heart pounding like a drum in his ears, feels it shake him almost bodily on his feet. To his right Porthos curses quietly - he's much taller, and trying to stay as low as possible is proving difficult. Still, it must be a hundred metres or so to the crater that they saw the two men approach, and it's too far a distance for them to crawl. Athos isn't sure quite how they'll bring the injured man back even if he's still alive - they can hardly drag him the whole way.

He sees Porthos look at him from the corner of his eyes, asking "where the bloody hell is it?" in a voice barely a breath. They must be close, but the battlefield is covered in craters and pocked earth, and everything looks different with the hollowed patches of snow and slops of mud that suck at their boots.

"In here," Athos whispers, and dives for a shallow crater, the heavy weight of Porthos falling to one side and d'Artagnan to his other. They lie there on their bellies, heads together. Athos peers carefully over the ridge of earth out into the night. "It can't be far," he whispers, "It must be around here somewhere."

What has he done? Lead them out on a fool's mission, in the pitch dark. They could as easily break their legs on the uneven ground or stumble into a tangle of wire as be sighted by the enemy. They lie in silence for a moment, scanning the landscape just visible in front of them. Athos feels his muscles tic, tries to steady his wildly beating heart. He might have lead Porthos and d'Artagnan to their deaths, but this feels important, somehow. They have to find that man, whoever he is. Athos knows it in his bones, like something's pulling at him. They have to find him.

"There," d'Artagnan hisses, and is on his feet and running so suddenly all Athos can do is grab at empty air where the boy's uniform had been just moments before. "Shit!" Porthos hisses, on his feet and following d'Artagnan into the snow.

Athos sees the boy throw himself down at the lip of a crater that he himself would barely have noticed. A voice comes from inside, a quaking small thing.

"No I'm not an angel," d'Artagnan whispers.

"He's French," supplies Porthos, slipping down into the dark bottom of the crater.

The man is pale but for the dark paint of dried blood down one side of his face. His eyes are very wide.

At the bottom of the crater the mud and bodies have slowly slipped, and the man is half buried so that it takes Athos and Porthos both to pull him out. D'Artagnan hovers nearby, and helps them to a steady footing.

"Can you walk?" Athos asks.

The man turns wide unblinking eyes on him from where he's supported in the crook of Porthos' arm. He looks very young tucked there, and halfway gone.

"Yes. I think so. Perhaps. Did Marsac send you?"

"Who's Marsac?" Porthos asks, hefting the man a little closer. "Come on, we need to get back, quickly."

They pull him to the top of the crater, but it's soon apparent that while the man can walk, he can't do it without Porthos supporting him. They crouch as low as they can, but they can't move fast with the man so wounded and weak, and a steady stream of whispered curses trail behind them from Porthos' mouth. D'Artagnan crouches alongside, his rifle out and head flicking back and forth between them and the German line, somewhere out in the darkness. Athos hovers nearby with an outstretched arm ready to help support if needed.

They make it to the crater they'd paused at before and crumple in its protection for a moment, gaining their breath. The wounded man's skin is sallow and sick looking, his eyes beginning to droop. Athos decides it's best not to stop for too long, and they push on. Every here and there one of them pulls the others towards the protection of a crater, a blackened tree stump or piece of debris. After stopping like this three times they make to move off when the wounded man slumps bonelessly to the ground with a sighed apology. Porthos shoots a glance at Athos, and shrugs.

With the wounded man slung over his shoulder it's hard for Porthos to stay as low, and the hairs on Athos' neck begin to prickle and rise. He can hear d'Artagnan praying in French on the other side of Porthos, mumbling the words as quietly as he can.

They're within sight of the British line when Porthos' legs get tangled in a thick burr of wire, and with a grunt he comes down. The wounded man hits the ground with a bitten off cry, and d'Artagnan and Athos throw themselves down too. Through the darkness Athos can hear raised voices, and moments later a round of tracer fire zips over their heads.

"Fuck," Porthos swears, "Fuck, fuck, I'm caught!"

D'Artagnan wriggles over and plucks desperately at the wire. "Stay still! Stay still Porthos!"

"Porthos!" Athos says, letting his voice carry that note of command he knows they find it hard to ignore. He lays a hand on Porthos' shoulder and catches his panicked eye. "You need to stay calm, and still."

The gun in Athos holster is hardly going to do anything, but he takes it out anyway, if only to feel less helpless. D'Artagnan is working steadily at the tangle of wire around Porthos' legs, swears and takes out his trench knife to cut at the puttees it's caught in, unravelling and tearing them away.

Athos crawls over to look at the wounded man, whose eyes are flickering beneath half-closed lids now. He works a hand under the uniform at the man's neck and feels his skin, cool and clammy beneath his touch, the pulse thready and weak but there.

"Done, done!" d'Artagnan says, as more tracer fire whips over head. A whistling announces the first few shells, though it's a tentative barrage on the German's part, thank God.

There's nothing for it then but to run, run the last ten or twenty metres back to the line. Athos can see it now, see a head poking above the soil. That's when the shooting starts.

"We're British! Don't shoot!" Athos shouts as Porthos hefts the wounded man into his arms and back over his shoulder. "Don't bloody shoot!"

But the night is dark and neither side seems to know exactly what's going on. This is why you tell people what you're doing before you do it, Athos thinks distantly. We should have told someone, at least.

This is how it happens, Athos thinks. Shot by his own men, on a cold snowy night at Easter, and it all feels terribly fitting somehow.

"Fuck this," he hears Porthos bellow as they near the lines, weaving and ducking slightly to avoid the bullets and it's nothing short of a miracle that none of them have been hit yet.

" _KEEP THE HOME FIRES BUUURNING!"_ Porthos sings in a breathless, laboured shout as the British line grows nearer, _"WHILE YOUR HEARTS ARE YEEEARNING!"_

Athos hears shouts from the trenches, hears something that might have been _"cease fire!"_ and charges forward, an arm out to support Porthos as d'Artagnan mirrors him on the other side.

They tumble into the trench in a confusion of khaki and mud and panicked breaths, landing none too lightly on each other, though Athos notices Porthos lowering the wounded man down with shaking arms as gently as if he were made of china.

"You're bloody insane, you lot!" One of the soldiers in the trench says, white-faced. "We nearly had you there, you mad bastards."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know the realities of war, Sir. I know we will climb out of this one only atop the broken bodies of a million men,” Athos says, and tries not to let his voice shake. He can feel the tattoo prickling a little, over his heart. “And If I am one of those men I will go gladly. But yesterday I watched an entire battalion wiped out for no reason whatsoever. God saw fit to spare one man - bringing him back seemed to me the only thing to do.”
> 
> *

Treville doesn’t shout at Athos at first, only stands behind his desk, eying him steadily, knuckles whitening on the back of the chair he leans against. He looks more tired than Athos has ever seen him, and there’s something worn about him, like he’s frayed at the edges.

For his part Athos stands to attention, looking into the middle distance, and waits. The trench system where Lieutenant-Colonel Treville is currently based is a mile or so behind the front lines, and even at this late hour the sounds of men coming and going filter through the thin door, sloshing as they make their way through the slush and melted snow at the bottom of the trenches.

“I’d ask you what you were thinking,” Treville says, finally, “But I know you too well, Captain.”

Athos stays silent.

“You must know that there will come a day when I won’t be there to cover for your sorry arse, don’t you? If Major Bonner were here he’d like have the lot of you shot.”

“Sir,” Athos says, “I appreciate it but -”

“Shut up,” Treville orders, but he sounds so tired it comes out almost flat. He wipes his hands across his eyes and sighs deeply. “One man,” he says, “You risked yourself for one man. Am I correct?”

“Yes sir,” Athos replies, levelly.

“This cannot keep happening. Your orders are given for a reason. You cannot throw your life away for that of _one man._ ”

“How many, sir?” Athos still doesn’t look at Treville, stares at a spot on the mouldering wall.

“I beg your pardon?”

“How many suffering men are worth my life?”

The other man takes a step closer and for a moment Athos flinches, just slightly, sure that Treville is going to strike him. He pulls up in front of him, and his face is white and drawn. When Treville speaks it is low and fast and forceful.

“This is war. Some men die. Some men don’t. I know you are labouring under the ridiculous notion that you should have died long ago, but I am your bloody Lieutenant-Colonel and I order you to _stop_. ”

The words hit Athos like a peppering of machine gun fire, he feels them rock him on his feet. Is it that obvious? Does everyone know the way he wakes sweating and shivering in the night, tight in the cloying embrace of the guardian saint tattooed across his breast, the longing for quiet and peace and an _end_ singing in his bones?

Athos takes in a breath, blinks, still won’t look at Treville.

“I know the realities of war, Sir. I know we will climb out of this one only atop the broken bodies of a million men,” Athos says, and tries not to let his voice shake. He can feel the tattoo prickling a little, over his heart. “And If I am one of those men I will go gladly. But yesterday I watched an entire battalion wiped out for no reason whatsoever. God saw fit to spare one man - bringing him back seemed to me the only thing to do.”

It’s Treville’s turn to look shaken now. It’s a moment before he speaks, and his voice is too level, too controlled. “So you do God’s work, now? Athos, we are not like other men, you and I. We _lead_ them. When will you start looking at the bigger picture?”

“Perhaps I can’t.”

“Perhaps you must learn.” Treville turns, moves back to his desk and leans heavily against it. “Do you think I like it? Do you think I'd...." He pulls in a breath, and goes on, "Sometimes we are made...we are given...orders we do not understand, or like. But this is how wars are won."

There's no answer to be made to that. Athos wants to reply that winning is not worth damning all their souls, but he's not sure he believes it. There are men like him, and Treville, and perhaps they survive the war but they will never be the victors. There will never be a peace for them.

"Jesus Christ," Treville says, "I need a drink.”

“There’s a particularly fine armagnac in that foot-locker,” Athos says after a moment, back to attention and staring dutifully at the wall, but pointing at the low chest over to his right.

“Is there now,” Treville says, considering. “And how would you know that, Captain?”

“Because I hid it there, sir,” Athos replies calmly.

Treville huffs a laugh, short and tired. “How long, exactly, have you been hiding alcohol in my things?”

“Since October second, 1914, sir.”

The other man thinks for a moment. “That’s the day I met you, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“How you’ve survived this long without a court-martial is anyone’s guess,” Treville says, exasperated. He rummages through the foot-locker and finds the bottle, hidden behind some dog-eared maps. There are a few glasses on a shelf behind the desk, and he pours a short measure for each of them, fairly shoves the glass at Athos, and downs his briskly.

“Come on then, let’s find this man who was worth the lives of you and your two shadows.”

“I ordered Porthos and d’Artagnan to stay on the line as soon as we returned, sir,” Athos says, following the other man out into the trench, the sky just beginning to lighten to dawn.

“Hmm. And you really think they followed that order, do you?”

 

*

 

One by one, Aramis’ senses return. When he first wakes he feels as though his eyes have been welded shut with something gritty and awful, and takes a moment to convince himself that he’s lying still in the bed as the darkness swings around him sickeningly.

There are only a few lamps in the hospital tent, but he can tell by the pale light filtering through the canvas walls that it’s almost dawn. Men are up and about, shadows passing dizzyingly beyond the tent walls.

The noise is almost too much to bear too, men groaning in the tent and men talking and laughing outside, the clatter of metal basins, the hurried steps of the nurses. It floods Aramis with a hot rush of something like anger, because Marsac left and everyone he knows is dead but there are people here, so many people, carrying on like normal.

And then there’s the smell: blood and bile and the sting of disinfectant, somewhere above it the note of something he knows instinctively is fear.

He barely has the energy to lift himself upright to vomit, just folds in on himself sideways, propped on an elbow - and takes a moment to feel hard done by because he’s dimly aware this is at least the second time in probably twenty-four hours that he’s been sick on himself. His stomach muscles feel raw and scored with the motion, and his head is tight and pounding.

“There you go,” says a voice, and there’s the press of a hand on his shoulder, another smoothing through the hair on the top of his head, just where the bandage ends. “Better out than in.”

When his stomach eventually stops its clenching roil he puts out a hand to clutch at the arm of the man sitting beside him, and hopes that’s enough.

“Done?” the voice says. Aramis nods in reply. It’s the dark-skinned man from the night before, who grins in a flash of teeth and helps settle him back down in the bed, and brings a cloth to wipe the vomit from his chest and mouth.

“Would you like some water?” says another voice, and Aramis focuses his eyes enough to make out a younger man - not much more than a boy - sitting beside the bed too.

“The angel,” Aramis croaks, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile. “Who’s French.”

“You remember, then? That’s d’Artagnan, I’m Porthos, and you’re Aramis,” Porthos says, patting the dog-tags under Aramis’ shirt.

“Yes,” Aramis says, a little blearily. “I am. Did they give me morphia? I feel...odd.”

“It’s the concussion,” d’Artagnan offers, “You hit your head quite badly.”

He really is very angelic, Aramis thinks, all big brown eyes and smooth skin of youth. He barely looks old enough to shave. “Mmm,” he says, blinking heavily.

“You should be fine, just need a bit of rest and-”

Porthos stops mid-sentence, he and d’Artagnan jumping to their feet and standing stiffly to attention. Aramis swings his head around and, once the room has settled, makes out two men walking towards him. One is familiar from the previous night, the other has the insignia of a lieutenant-colonel on each cuff of his slightly rumpled jacket.

“Good to see you awake, Lance-Corporal,” the older man says, “I am Lieutenant-Colonel Treville, I believe you already know Captain Athos. No, don’t get up,” Treville says, putting out a hand, but Porthos has already leant down to push him gently but firmly back down to the bed.

“Sir,” Aramis says, not quite sure what else to say.

“Yes,” Treville says, looking over him, and there’s an odd note to his voice. “You’ll be just fine.”

He clears his throat and stands a little straighter, “Once you’re well I’m having you transferred to Captain Athos’ company - that is, _Major Bonner’s_ company,” he stresses, “Where Captain Athos is second-in-command. Welcome to the Grenadier Guards, Lance-Corporal.”

He nods once, firmly, and turns on his heels.

“But I’m Royal Welsh,” Aramis manages, when Treville has left. “Can he do that?”

“He can do whatever he likes, he’s a lieutenant colonel,” d’Artagnan says.

“With the ear of the King. And he _should_ be a general - is one really, in all but name,” Porthos supplies, “Keeps turning down his commissions, won't take higher than a lieutenant-colonel. He likes to be in the field, not behind some desk.”

“Is he mad?”

“Debatable,” Porthos muses. Aramis shoots a look at the Captain - Athos - who seems hardly to have noticed the glaring insubordination of his men.

“Are all Grenadier Guards like you?” Aramis asks, a little faintly.

“I don’t think there’s anyone quite like us,” Athos murmurs, and Porthos bellows a laugh that’s quickly hushed when he sees how Aramis winces.

“I thought I told you two to stay on the line,” Athos says, pulling up a chair. Porthos and d’Artagnan, sprawled back in their chairs the minute Treville left, blink at each other.

“We had to come to the aid station, you know, because…”

“Because we’ve got trench foot. Maybe,” d’Artagnan says, all innocence and wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Porthos nods in agreement, “Maybe trench foot.”

“Hmm,” Athos responds. “If you’re going to lie, do it with a grain of truth. For instance, you might well have said that you need your legs looking at,” he says, glancing pointedly at Porthos’ shins, the trouser legs torn and bloody from the wire. “Or your hands, d’Artagnan.”

D’Artagnan looks at his hands, both of which are a little bloody and scraped, from where he freed Porthos from the barbed wire. “Oh,” he says, genuinely surprised.

Porthos lifts up a leg and looks quizzically at it. “Yeah, that would have been a better excuse,” he says, a little sheepishly. “But it ain’t that bad.”

“No,” d’Artagnan agrees, “Not so bad at all.”

“Nevertheless, gentleman, you will get those seen to before you report back to the line.” Athos’ voice carries a note of command now.

“But, Athos,” d'Artagnan tries.

“You disobeyed my order and came to the aid station. Now your punishment will be letting the nurses bandage your wounds.”

D’Artagnan sighs dramatically and nods his assent. “ _Oui._ Alright then, I suppose.”

“Porthos?”

“Yeah,” Porthos grumbles, “ _Wee,_ I suppose.”

Aramis is beginning to feel utterly confused, and unable to tell if it stems from concussion, or grief, or just these three strange men, and their lieutenant-colonel who is really a general.

One of the nurses motions that she’ll be with them soon, and they sit and wait, letting the silence settle around them. There’s noise outside, Aramis knows - the same people coming and going, the same moans and cries from the beds around him, the same awful smell of the hospital tent - but somehow he feels oddly _cocooned,_ as safe as he’s felt for a long time. The silence is easy and companionable in a way Aramis has never experienced before, always wanting to fill it with chatter or jokes or song. It was hard to stay silent with Marsac - there was so much to say, but the words were never there.

The thought of Marsac seems to prise open some shuttered gate inside him, and before long he’s almost gasping for breath around the rise of emotions too complicated to give name to, something like panic and hurt, the terrible cold grip of anger.

“S’alright,” Porthos says, quietly, his hand heavy on Aramis’ leg through the blankets. D’artagnan shuffles a little closer, and Athos seems to have moved so that he is screening Aramis from outside view as the tears spill scalding from his eyes.

“It is,” d’Artagnan agrees, voice low.

“It will be,” Athos says.

Aramis cries until he falls into an exhausted sleep, but he can feel the presence of the three men around his bed long after he closes his eyes.

 

*

 

Aramis is ushered into the ranks of the Grenadier Guards with little pomp and ceremony, though it’s clear that Treville has pulled some significant strings to smooth the whole thing over. _Why_ , Aramis feels is the pertinent question, rather than _how_ , since he’s been in the army long enough to know that there are rules for the foot-soldiers and a rather looser set of guidelines for the higher ranks like that of Lieutenant-Colonel Treville. The only answer that goes halfway to making sense is that Treville pities him. It’s not a sentiment that sits well on Aramis, but he is a practical man if nothing else. Besides, where would he be, otherwise? In his quieter moments, in the weeks after _that night_ , Aramis sometimes feels like a company of diggers have been tunneling underneath him, that he’s hollow through, and only shored up by three men around him: d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos.

They stay close, though Athos’ rank as a captain - and, it becomes clear, his solitary character - means that he is often more distant and withdrawn than Porthos, who is all bluster and booming laugh to d’Artagnan’s quickness and youth.

Aramis wonders if they find it strange, that he is so quickly and so utterly a part of their group - that their three has become four, with little fuss or fanfare. They accept him into the ranks of their odd little circle as though they had been waiting for him all along, and he begins to feel a kind of peace with them that he had never felt with Marsac, or anyone else, for that matter. For his part, Aramis does not find it strange. It feels only _right_ , deep and settled within his bones.

 

*

 

Three months later, and the June heat is humid and stiffling where the Grenadier Guards are based, in Toutencourt, a small town in the Somme department of the Picardie region. The rain never seems to halt for long, though now at least the trees and distant hills are green and verdant with it, and only dead and brown where the men have trampled the growing things into the mud that seems to trail always in their wake. Treville is called back to an encampment near Paris, and there is talk of some big offensive on the horizon, the feeling of something big awaiting them.

It’s one evening when the rain has halted long enough for Porthos to announce it is finally like breathing air instead of dank water, when Athos is called to speak to Major Bonner.

“Perhaps he’s noticed Aramis is here,” D’Artagnan muses.

“Or d’Artagnan,” Porthos adds.

“Or Porthos,” Aramis says, smiling. They nod to Athos as he twists his face into an almost smile, heading out the door. “We’ll save you some tea,” Porthos offers, inspecting the hand of cards d’Artagnan has just dealt him.

“Please don’t,” Athos calls back, curling his lip at the sludge of dark liquid in the tin kettle by the door. “I’m sure it’s heresy to call that tar anything remotely resembling _tea_.”

“I agree,” Aramis announces, “Pour me some, will you Porthos?”

Athos closes the door and leaves them to their bickering and banter, but outside it’s clear that the runner who came to call him to Bonner is not alone: a pair of hulking, grim-faced orderlies stand with him, and move to flank Athos as he appears through the doorway. He frowns, shooting a glance back towards the door, his companions voices within, but decides drawing attention to them by making a scene would be good for no one.

He lifts an eyebrow at the runner, a young lad with a blonde, whiskery face between the horrendous pimples, and lifts his hands gingerly in a show of surrender.

Major Bonner’s quarters are in an old barn a little way behind the trenches, though it’s clear that he’s not sleeping here - most probably a hotel or guesthouse in the nearest town. The barn is swept clean, a long camp table set up facing the door and lamps dangling precariously from the rafters against the darkening light of evening.

Athos looks surreptitiously at the men sitting at the desk before him, trying to find some clue in their faces as to why he is here: Major Bonner is staring at him, sat beside two lieutenants - Woodbury and McAvoy - who Athos knows by name though their paths have rarely crossed. The two stone-faced orderlies flank Athos where he stands, another two at the door.

"Is this your signature, Captain Athos? Here?"

Major Bonner holds a piece of paper gingerly - from where he's standing Athos can't tell what it is, but from the slight smile flickering just behind the man's eyes he can tell it's nothing good. An orderly takes the paper from the Major and brings it over.

It's soft in his hand, the edges a little worn.

The cool chill of inevitability settles about Athos like a blanket of snow from a cloud that's been threatening for two years now.

"Yes, sir." He answers, tone level and eyes dutifully fixed on the wall beyond the Major's shoulder. The orderly takes the paper back to the desk.

"A marriage license. I was not aware that you had a wife, Captain?" The Major's tone is conversational. He brings up a hand to stroke idly at his neat, pencil-thin moustache. One of the lieutenants shifts uncomfortable in his chair.

"I no longer do, sir."

"Divorce? How modern!"

"No sir," Athos says, and he's not really surprised at how steady his voice is, because everything is cold and heavy and receding. "She's dead."

"Really? And was it before or after you said your vows that you discovered that your beloved..." the Major looks down at the paper, " _Anne_ , was a German spy?"

Athos takes a moment, still looks straight ahead. "I was not aware of her nature when I married her. When I discovered it I shot her."

"Did you, now? Well you didn't do a very good job of it, Captain. We had her in custody in Lyon two days ago, but she gave us the slip."

"Sir?" Athos says, confused.

"Your wife is alive," the Major says, and he's barely able to restrain the smirk as he speaks, "Or was the last we saw of her. You wouldn't happen to know of her current whereabouts, hmm?"

"I..." The heaviness is constricting now, pushing down on him like a stone on his chest, and it's shaken him to the core but it all just feels so bloody _inevitable_. "Alive..."

"Have you passed your wife any information, now or ever?" Major Bonner asks.

"No," Athos says, vehement. "Sir I am many things but never a traitor."

"I wouldn't put it past you," the Major says, mildly. "You always have thought yourself beyond the rules."

"Sir-"

"Captain Athos, you are charged with espionage, sabotage and treason."

" _Sabotage_?" Athos asks, the disbelief, the shock has flattened his voice into something alien to his own ears.

"You have made a practice of disobeying direct orders - we can only assume that you hope to sustain significant losses to your own men as a result, or sow sedition at the least."

There's nothing he can say. The words are gone. Anne is alive.

"You will face a firing squad, Captain. Tomorrow morning."

"Sir!" Lieutenant McAvoy says, breaking his silence and rising in his chair. "This is not correct procedure - there must be a trial!" He looks at his fellow lieutenant for support, but the other man is silent, seeming uneasy but not likely to question the matter.

"And who would be at the trial, Lieutenant?" the Major asks. "Myself, you, Lieutenant Woodbury, the guilty party." He gestures at each man in turn. " _This_ is the trial."

"Even so, sir, a death sentence must be signed by the Field Marshal. The process takes weeks. He cannot go before a firing squad tomorrow morning!"

"Field Marshal Richelieu is a personal friend and has already ratified my decision.”

“At the very least, you must concede than the decision must be unanimous between the three presiding commissioned officers.”

“And is it not?” Major Bonner asks. He looks pointedly at the other lieutenant in the room, Woodbury, who shifts in his chair and does not meet his eye. When Woodbury speaks his voice is hoarse and low. “I am with the Major.”

McAvoy looks disgusted. “Well my position has not changed. I will not agree to the death sentence for Captain Athos in this matter.”

“Lieutenant, must I remind you that this is not a case of simple disobedience, or desertion. This is treason of the highest order, and must be dealt with swiftly. And, once again," he says, and though his face is blank there is something like victory in his eyes, “The Field Marshall is a personal friend. He has already ratified my decision.”

Athos notices through the fog of numbness, that McAvoy has gone very still, and asks quietly, “Then, if you’ll beg my pardon Major, what point was there in a trial?”

“Justice must be done,” Major Bonner says, calmly.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Treville will never agree to this," McAvoy replies.

"Yes, I'm very aware that Captain Athos is a pet of Treville's," Major Bonner says with a curl of his lip. "But Treville is not here, and we cannot show favouritism. No man is above the law."

"You're right, of course," Lieutenant McAvoy says after a moment. " _No_ man is."

The Major seems oblivious to the lieutenant's cool tone as the man salutes stiffly and leaves, sparing a quick glance at Athos as he passes.

"Take him away," Bonner says, waving his hand dismissively, and he does not look up from his papers as the orderlies march Athos to the door.

 

*

 

“Where is he?” Aramis says once more, peering over the heads of the men assembled in the farmyard. “He’s been gone for ages.”

“Bonner’s probably got him diggin’ latrines for some made-up reason.” Porthos says, inspecting the sight on his rifle.

“Bonner is a shit,” d’Artagnan says, in agreement. “And so are you Porthos because that is my gun.”

“No it ain't!” Porthos replies, offended. “You think I can’t tell my Balizarde from your piece of shit weapon?”

“Yes I do think that. Because _this_ is Balizarde,” the younger man says, holding up a rifle. “And that,” he points at the gun in Porthos’ hands, “Is my piece of shit weapon.”

“Oh,” Porthos says frowning, “Yeah. You’re right.” He swaps his gun with d’Artagnan’s and hefts it lightly in his palms. “Yeah.”

“If your weapon is so shit why don’t you get another one?” Aramis asks d’Artagnan, still looking around for Athos.

“Because it’s _my_ piece of shit. And I’ve learned how to use it.”

Aramis holds his rifle a little closer to himself. “Well my rifle is perfect so keep your hands off it. And, once again, where the bloody hell is Athos? We’re going out on patrol, he should be here.”

Porthos just shrugs, but there’s something like worry, there in the corner of his mouth, and d’Artagnan joins Aramis in peering around the other men, looking for Athos’ familiar shape moving towards them.

The rain starts to patter again, droplet by droplet pinging of the helmets of the assembled, and a collective groan goes up amongst the men. “Merde,” d’Artagnan mutters.

“Are you Porthos?” A voice calls from the sea of khaki in front of him. Bodies part as a man strides towards them. “Yeah - who the bloody hell else would I be?” Porthos answers, turning to look. He spots the insignia on the man’s arm and says, with only a touch more deference, “Lieutenant.”

“I’ve seen you, and you two,” the Lieutenant says, nodding at Aramis and d’Artagnan, “With Captain Athos.” The three men bristle, drawing ever so slightly closer to each other. “And?” Porthos asks, his tone back to bullish once more.

“Major Bonner has had him court-martialed. He’ll go before a firing squad tomorrow morning.”

Porthos, Aramis and d’Artagnan shout as one, talking over each other until Aramis raises his voice enough to be heard by the Lieutenant over the general disbelief. “What for, Lieutenant?”

“Sedition, treason, sabotage -”

“- Horseshit!” Porthos bellows. “Bonner’s jealousy more like!”

“Yes, that too,” replies the Lieutenant, coolly. “I’m sorry gentlemen. I tried.” He takes a breath. “There is nothing that _I_ can do. And Treville is in Paris, I believe.” He looks at them squarely, a slight, imperceptible nod of his head.

“Porthos, you are dismissed from this patrol. You two, I’m afraid, will have to go.”

“What?” Porthos asks, confused.

“We understand,” Aramis says, saluting the Lieutenant, who marches briskly away. “Paris, I believe,” he says again, over his shoulder, before he is swallowed up by the crowd of men once more.

“No we bloody do not understand,” Porthos says, turning to Aramis.

“The Lieutenant can’t do anything, but we might be able to,” d’Artagnan says, lowering his voice in the apparent hopes that Porthos will follow suit.

“It would be too suspicious if the three of us were running around without orders. So….just one of us should,” Aramis adds.

“And where exactly should I go running off to?” Porthos glowers.

“Paris,” Aramis and d’Artagnan say, as one.

“Treville,” Porthos adds, understanding now.

“Though how you’ll get there in time I have no idea,” Aramis says, frowning.

Something lights up in Porthos’ eyes, and if the situation weren’t so serious it would be something close to joy. “Don’t ask, won’t tell,” he says, slapping Aramis and d’Artagnan on the back. “If it’s humanly possible to get to Paris and back by dawn, I’ll bloody well do it.”

“See you by morning,” d’Artagnan grins, and it's to his credit that there’s not a shadow of doubt in his voice. “Bon voyage.”

“Yeah, bon yourself,” Porthos grins darkly, striding away.

 

*

 

Where Porthos is from, if something is left alone, if something isn’t bolted down, well, it’s as good as asking to get nicked, ain’t it? London’s Spitalfields had set Porthos up for a grand time in the army - where did everyone think he got all that food and booze from in the middle of a battlefield, anyway? It didn’t come by asking, or praying.

But God help anyone who calls Porthos a thief. A thief takes from greed, or jealousy, or the joy of taking. Porthos _liberates_ that which is being taken for granted, that which could be so much better served by him, or his mates, and only when it is needed.

And it is needed now. So it really doesn’t cause him any kind of moral discomfort to rev the Triumph Model H motorcycle into glorious, sputtering life, and let it ride as it was meant to - fast, and full of purpose.

Anyway, he thinks to himself, as he sets off on the road to Paris, the army really shouldn’t have left such a lovely thing sitting all lonely like, behind that barn.

 

*

 

It takes only a little while for Aramis to find out where Athos has been taken: there is a sprawling farmhouse a few hundred yards from the barn where Major Bonner has set up his field desk. Enough men saw them march Athos down the little grassy track to the tumbledown house, with its mostly gone roof poked through with charred wooden beams. The upper and ground floors are completely useless, but the basement is intact, and with its one door and no windows it makes a perfect prison.

The farmyard out front is peppered with soldiers lazing in the dappled light of beech trees - including two who sit either side of the door-less doorway, guarding the shattered remains of a staircase inside with its locked entrance to the basement - but the back of the building faces a steep grassy bank, littered with dead leaves and rusty tin-cans and broken crockery. It’s here that Aramis and d’Artagnan find themselves, lying amidst the trash with faces pressed to a tiny sliver of grating that opens out into the dark basement. Aramis presses his eye against the rusted metal and hisses Athos’ name, but there’s no response but the shivering rustle of beech leaves above them, and the chill of moss and rotting leaves seeps through their clothes. He thinks he can make out a shape in the darkness below, a hunched figure next to the far wall where a tiny, amorphous patch of light shimmers.

“Athos,” d’Artagnan pleads. “Can you hear us? We’re going to get you out. Porthos has gone for Treville. He’ll get you out.” The young man looks at Aramis helplessly, dark eyes wide and confused. “What’s wrong with him?”

Aramis shakes his head, and grits his teeth. “Athos, we know you’re not guilty,” he says after a while. “We all know you didn’t do anything.”

“Yes,” d’Artagnan agrees, “It’s all horseshit-”

There’s something like a rattled breath that they can just make out through the little grill. “You know nothing.” Athos says, and then he falls silent, and will not say another word no matter how hard they try.

 

*

 

Porthos is no stranger to tiredness. There were nights back home in London where sleep was a luxury that could leave you dead. There were nights here in France much the same, and if it wasn’t death that flittered nearby it was horror of a different kind. During an advance over the top, before one, or worst yet in Porthos’ estimation, the nights afterwards, where your head rang like a bell with the echoes of gunshots and you couldn’t get the smell of blood and burning out of your nose, or your finger to relax from its crooked trigger curl.

But he is tired now, tired through to his bones which rattle in remembrance of the motorbike and the potholed roads of France. Seven times the wheels had slipped sideways in a slick of dirt and thrown Porthos to the ground. Five times the bike had simply stopped dead in the depth of mud and he’d had to claw and scuffle and shove his - and its - way clear. Porthos doesn’t go in much for religion any more, but he thinks that Aramis’ god must have been looking out for them, because an hour outside of Paris he had almost driven clear into the little convoy of vehicles bringing Treville and his staff back to the front. The Lieutenant-Colonel had been unwilling at first to pay much attention to the bellowing, mud-covered man standing in the middle of the road waving his arms, but Porthos had eventually been able to convince Treville that he was in fact who he said he was, and that Athos needed his help.

Treville’s face had gone dark as thunder when Porthos explained in hurried breathless gaps what Bonner had done. Motioning to his men to put the motorbike into the back of his vehicle, he’d pulled Porthos up alongside him and set off for the front at renewed speed. The Rolls Royce armoured car couldn’t quite reach the speeds of Porthos’ motorbike, but with the two of them and the rough road ahead clambering aboard the now-protesting bike wasn’t an option.

Through the night the armoured car rattled on, and the shattered French countryside wavered in and our of Porthos’ sleep fogged eyes, till the dawn came easing in so slow he hardly noticed the sun had risen somewhere up there, above the big, milky summer clouds.

 

*

 

When they drag Athos out he is as wide-eyed and the shadows are dark and smudged purple underneath his eyes. He stares ahead at nothing as they bind his hands in front of him and lead him tripping down the tumbled grass track to stand against the barn wall. The five-man firing squad are soberly blank, faces a little papery in the early morning light. Major Bonner sits nearby with a cup of steaming tea, and smiles in brittle, satisfied sort of way, so quick that it’s gone before anyone but Aramis can notice it, but not fast enough to stop the little pilot light of hatred from sputtering higher in Aramis’ chest.

He’s bitten his nails to the quick and d’Artagnan has vomited once already this morning and looks set to do so again. Aramis can feel the quivering of rage and helplessness in the other man’s shoulder where it leans into him just slightly. There are a group of Major Bonner’s men around them, eyeing them suspiciously and with hands too close to triggers for comfort, ready to push Aramis and d’Artagnan back if they make a move towards the man stood leaning slightly sideways, back to a bullet-peppered wall. But here too are privates and corporals and commissioned men, captains and lieutenants, silently watching, crowded around with something angry behind their eyes and an uneasiness like a shiver running through the ranks. Many stare unblinking at Major Bonner, eyes flinty, and others glance uneasily at Athos who stands head bowed over bound hands. They’re not supposed to be here but Major Bonner seems unwilling to send them away, and sits like a lizard basking in the sun, the kind of man content to rule by fear when respect does not come.

“Porthos said he’d do it,” d’Artagnan says, and there’s something like a sob in his voice. “I was sure Porthos could do it.”

Aramis puts a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, and the movement is enough to cause a stir of suspicious amongst the men around them. Aramis eyes them, daring them to make a move.

He can feel it, like a breath before a plunge, and he doesn’t know if it’s just the beginning of the end about to come or if it’s some sort of sixth sense. Aramis feels like his nerves are raw, every sense open wide, waiting, listening, feeling for something about to happen, and whether it’s the hail of gunfire or a distant engine, a command to hold-fire, he doesn’t know. The only certainty in Aramis is a sense of utter revulsion that someone should try to make their _four_ into _three_ , because it has to be them, it has to be Aramis, Porthos, d’Artagnan and Athos. As if it were written, deep down on the matter of their blood and bones and heart, as if it were always meant to be. It has to be the four of them. It’s too much, suddenly, all too much. Aramis drops to his knees, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Most high, all-powerful, good Lord,” he breathes, and the words grow stronger as he speaks them, “Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and all blessing.” Aramis’ voice is ringing out now, clear and unwavering in a way that seems to come from outside of him. It’s not peace that's come over him now, but a kind of purpose. “To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no humans is worthy to mention Your Name. Oh Lord, my Lord.” The words spool out of his mouth like beads on a rosary, and he has no idea where they come from but they feel real in the cool morning air, they feel as though they could make a difference. “Save this poor sinner.”

Through the legs of the men around him he sees a soldier - a young private with skin gone pale with sickened dread - fall to his knees with a thud and clasp his hands in prayer, head bowed low and shaking. As his knees meet the ground a shaft of dazzling light breaks through from behind a cloud and hits the wall behind Athos, who squints in the brightness. It’s just sunlight, a moment between clouds - Aramis knows that - but it’s enough. A hushed whisper goes through the crowd and another man falls to his knees nearby, and another, but most of the men still stand straight-backed and waiting. He feels more than sees d’Artagnan slip away in the crowd but has little time to wonder why. “Enough,” Major Bonner says, standing quick enough to up-end his enameled mug of tea on an aide standing beside him. “Take aim,” he motions to the firing squad, who look uncertainly back and forth between their commander and the men praying before them.

“Save this poor sinner that he might live,” Aramis continues, voice rising higher with its lilt of Welsh, and he can almost feel the chill of the old village church around him. “And honor you in his living. Save his soul. Save him.” At his last words there’s a clatter from behind him and a mad flutter of wings above, low enough to make the men duck and cover their heads.

Soldiers are superstitious by nature - it’s the only way to keep going, on and on through horror and pain and weariness so deep in your bones it feels like you’ll never draw breath again. So while Aramis knows later that d’Artagnan - quick-thinking little bastard - had snuck to the side of the crowd and chucked a stone at the dovecote behind the barn, startling free the little flock of snowy white doves that had sat peaceably sleeping with heads tucked beneath wings until that moment, it was enough to send his heart leaping into his throat and twenty more men to gasp and fall to their knees.

Enough of a distraction, too. Three of the five man firing squad have fallen to their knees too. “It’s the Angels!” A voice that sounds suspiciously like d’Artagnan’s calls from somewhere in the crowd. “Yes, the Angels of Mons!” Replies another, from somewhere else, to a chorus of startled agreement. “We’re not in bloody Mons!” Bonner spits back. “There are no angels! It’s just birds!” A snowy white feather floats down to rest lightly on his shoulder and he bats at himself to swipe it clear. But the men whisper uneasily, and when the crowd falls silent once more there’s a thin thread of noise growing closer, fast. The armoured car pulls up in a spray of dirt and fumes and it seems like nothing less than a miracle. Treville hops down from the cab and strides towards Major Bonner, whose turn it now is to turn papery pale.

 

*

 

Major Bonner is gone by that afternoon. Promoted, and sent to a desk job somewhere far behind the lines, and there aren’t many who are sad to see him go. Porthos argues that for all Bonner put him through Athos should be his replacement, but Athos has yet to utter a single word other than to recommend Lieutenant McAvoy be leapfrogged up to major and given Bonner’s old command, because Athos will face the firing squad again before he accepts it. He looks ashen and frail in a way that Porthos has never seen him before, but he won’t talk to any of them about what happened. Treville takes him away and speaks to him in private for some time, but when Porthos and Aramis and d’Artagnan try to get it out of him Treville only looks sharply at them and reminds them of their rank and how inadvisable it is for privates to bother their superiors.

Athos drinks himself into boneless oblivion that night, and Aramis gets an accidental black eye while helping Porthos maneuver Athos into his bunk to sleep off whatever eye-watering liquor he’d managed to get his hands on.

“He’s not a coward,” Porthos says later, sitting around a jerry-can of boiling tea. “It’s not that.”

“Not that,” agrees d’Artagnan. “He’s not afraid of death.”

“He’s not afraid _enough_ of death for his own good,” Aramis says darkly.

“Then what is it?” Porthos says after a while, and they all look at each other in silence, because the man sleeping fitfully in the bunk behind them has never been particularly at peace but there is something troubling him now, something that they cannot understand, and that they know intrinsically he will never confess to them.

  


*

In July what will come to be known as the Battle of the Somme begins, and the Grenadier Guards are in the thick of it. Their days become a wash of smoke and noise and blood, and pushing pushing pushing forward, which feels like a hundred miles but is really only something like five or six. They’re told that they’re winning, but Athos finds he has little care for such things any more. He goes where he is told, and shoots and kills when he is told. He looks out for his men and tries, always, not to think of Anne, of the the spread of her dark hair beneath his fingers, the curious green-blue of her eyes, the way her lips curled when she smiled or how it felt to point his gun at her and pull the trigger. He finds himself hoping she is far away from here, because as much as he hates what she did to him he would not wish the Somme on anyone.

Summer hits a peak of watery, wan brightness and falls in on itself in the first days of September like a crumpled piece of paper. Everyone can feel autumn closing in around them with low foggy mornings and the promise of frosts to come, and the dread of winter. The Grenadier Guards advance to the town of Ginchy, fighting hard to win the priviledge of its wrecked streets and ruined buildings. It’s here, at last, that Athos can bring himself to take out the letter in his breast pocket and throw it on to a little wisp of crackling fire, and watches with hollow detachment as it catches and blackens in on itself. It never really bursts into flames, just scorches away to ash, which feels appropriate somehow: a pathetic end to what he had believed so earnestly to be love.

He drinks, and drinks - eye-watering liquor and old, clotted vermouth and good red wine salvaged from the ruins of a pub on what was once the main street. It takes a while for him to realise he’s not alone.

“I can’t get the smell out of it,” d’Artagnan says, standing a little way off, a dark shape against the sky deepening to a stars like a music-hall backdrop. He plucks, in a distracted sort of way at his jacket. Athos can see his eyes wide and glassy in the darkness.

“Nothing will get it out,” Athos says, because he is tired and it’s true, and he cannot be the one to make it right.

D’Artagnan crumples, lets his legs fold beneath him and sits ungainly on the ground. “It fucking stinks.” There’s blood and smoke and mud on him, on his uniform and on his face and matted in his hair. “Let me look at you,” Athos concedes, waving vaguely at the boy, who scoots a little closer and lets his face be turned from side to side, examined in the dimming light. “None of it’s yours. The blood.”

“I suppose not,” d’Artagnan says, in a non-committal sort of way, but he’s begun to shake and there’s an animal sort of fear coming off him in waves.

“You fought bravely today,” Athos says, but d’Artagnan just shrugs in response. “What are you burning?” he says, through the jitters that shake and pluck at his voice.

There’s still a little curl of visible, and through the singed edges and brown stained paper Athos can make out a few words. “That’s your writing,” d’Artagnan says. “A will, leaving everything to me and Porthos and Aramis?” he smiles.

“It’s a letter to Anne. My wife,” Athos says, because he’s drunk enough to feel as though nothing really matters anymore.  
D’Artagnan’s shaking begins to ease out, with the surprise, Athos supposes. “When did she die?” he asks. It’s a reasonable assumption, since Athos has never mentioned a wife, never written a single letter to anyone back home, and clearly lives and drinks like a man grieving. But he can’t help it: the laughter wells up inside him and spills out like blood from a wound. “Two years ago,” he says, swigging from the bottle in his hand to quiet his laughter, “But she tried to kill me last month.”

The other man is silent for a while, and then carefully says, “The ghost of your dead wife is trying to kill you?” and it only makes Athos laugh harder, and more desperate. He shakes his head, because there really, what use is it?

 

*

 

The leaves are crunchy and brittle in the frosty autumn morning, and it’s the only time in this whole damn war that Aramis has wished for a good bit of rain, which would make the forest floor slippery but significantly quieter to move about in on patrol. D’Artagnan seems to be the only one able to move with any degree of silence, country-boy that he is, but every crackle of leaf or snap of twig makes Aramis jump.

The four of them have been sent on a patrol - routine, and behind their own lines, but almost three years of war has taught them that you can never be too careful, so they keep their heads down and their rifles out. Even Athos has been persuaded to wear his helmet, though that had a lot to do with the fact that d’Artagnan had hidden Athos’ cap the moment they’d been ordered to move out on patrol. In any case, Athos hadn’t put up much of a fuss. It’s been easier to persuade him in almost anything since he came back from the firing squad. His eyes are red-rimmed with sleeplessness most days, his hip-flask always within reach and the fumes of alcohol undeniable.

“What exactly is the point of this patrol, anyway?” Porthos says, voice low.

“Keep us on our toes,” Aramis replies. “Remind us there’s a war on.”

Silence falls around them like a heavy cloak once more, broken only by the rustling of the leaves under their feet, the odd creaking caw of a crow somewhere above. “Wasn't the war supposed to be over by Christmas anyway?”, d’Artagnan calls back quietly from where he walks a few feet in front of them, his turn to be on point. “It’s October,” Athos says, “Not Christmas.”

“I meant Christmas two years ago,” d’Artagnan replies, a flash of grinning teeth over his shoulder.

Time is a funny thing. In that crater where Aramis lay amongst the dead men in the quiet of a snowy night, the hours had weighed heavy on him, leaden and sluggish with the mud and the blood and the lightheadedness of fear. It can’t have been more than a few hours, but it stretches in his mind whenever he can bear to think of it, until it’s longer than the entire two and a half years of war that preceded it.

Aramis has known d’Artagnan little more than six months before that morning, when they edge carefully through the woods near Bullecourt, and a sniper’s bullet whip-cracks through the still air. It’s this he will always hear, in that moment between sleeping and awake: the sharp split of gunfire, the little huff of breath, the sound a body makes when it slumps into the rattle of dead leaves on the forest floor.

They all hit the ground at the same time, cut-off cries that seem to fall and settle around them with the return of silence. There’s a moment of stillness before Porthos cries out - guttural, animal - and scrabbles on his belly towards where d’Artagnan lays with eyes staring wide and unblinking at the cold clouded sky above. Athos grabs Porthos by the belt and heaves him backwards, and with Aramis’ help they wrestle him down behind the cover of brambles grown high over an old tree stump.

“Where did the shot come from?” Athos asks.

“How can you...d’Artagnan! We have to get d’Artagnan!”

“He’s dead, Porthos.”

Aramis barely has time to grab at Porthos as he swings his arm back ready to land a wild punch. “Porthos,” he breathes, heavy and hard around the sharp lump in his throat. His face feels curiously hot, scalding tears and flushed with blood and the wild beating of his heart that tells him: you’re alive, you’re alive, _you’re_ alive. “Porthos.” The other man takes one look at him, and crumples inwards. “No.” Porthos says, after a moment, shaking his head. “No.”

Aramis closes his eyes and tries to think clearly, think around the chasm of _wrongness_ inside of him. He feels off-balance, as if some supporting column within has been knocked clear and he’s trying to stay upright with just the three of them, now. But he closes his eyes, and he tries to think clearly, tries to picture it: the geography around them, the way d’Artagnan fell, the angle of the shot. D’Artagnan lay on his back, but his knees gave out first, so Aramis thinks the bullet can’t have come from close by or straight ahead. They were heading towards a stand of trees, big broad oaks that still have a rattle of brown leaves cloaked about them, a few dark burrs of crows nests strung throughout. A crook of a branch. Broad enough to support a man? With enough cover to conceal? Yes?

“I can see it,” Aramis says, back against the tree stump, palming his weapon. “I can see him.”

He wheels and rises to one knee and squeezes out a shot before he even has a chance to breathe, or to pray that this one finds its mark. There’s a crash in the distance and then silence, and Aramis stands upright with a reckless kind of exhaustion, because if there’s another sniper out there he can just shoot Aramis for all he cares now.

Six months he’s known d’Artagnan, but six months was enough. Aramis knew d’Artagnan as well as any man could, knew him and loved him as he did Porthos and Athos both.

Time is a funny thing. _Four_ and then only _three_ , as quick as a breath, as quick as a bullet, clean through the heart. No dying words, no spitting of blood or quivering limbs. Porthos carries d’Artagnan back in silence and Treville’s eyes go icy and still when he sees them lay the boy out on a bunk. The shot was clean and clear and there is strangely little blood. D’Artagnan’s face is serene, and clear-eyed until they brush closed his eyelids. There were four, and then they were three, and Aramis prays that night till his knees cramp and hurt on the hard ground because he’s so fucking _grateful_ , because it was quick as a breath, as quick as a bullet.

He won’t say it to God, or Athos, or Porthos. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, since there are no words to mould and fit and take the weight of the quiet, heavy sort of awfulness: the bullet that took d’Artagnan was a balancing, of a kind. The death that could not find Aramis in that crater found d’Artagnan instead, six months later.

And it’s worse this time because in that crater Aramis was alone, abandoned by the only person who would have cared, once upon a time, if he had lived or died. But in the months since then they grew to be _four_. If Aramis had died there, as he should have, it would have been neater and more simple than the bullet that shot clean through d’Artagnan’s heart. This time the pain ripples out into three men left behind, and remains to be carried with them always, like tide marks on a petrified beach.

*  
Part 2 coming soon...  
*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING - MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH AHEAD.
> 
> However, that doesn't necessarily mean said character is gone for good....
> 
> Part 2 coming soon.


End file.
